


the star to every wandering bark

by cherryfeather



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos drinking his feelings, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, M/M, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1267342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryfeather/pseuds/cherryfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We know something happened," Porthos said. "Y' gonna tell us what?"</p>
<p>Athos shook his head, raising his head and staring into his wine cup as if it had some answer written for them. "There's no point." He could barely get the words out.  "It's over with now." </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Post-episode 3. Athos wants (and doesn't want) to be left alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the star to every wandering bark

**Author's Note:**

> Needed some OT3 feelings after episode 3. Title from Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, again, because I have lost all control of my life.

Bonnaire was finished, but Athos was still on edge. He'd thought it was the sense of incompleteness that had been bothering him, the injustice of letting the man walk free. But now that was handled, and he had to admit to himself: it wasn't Bonnaire at all. 

(He knew it never really had been.)

Porthos and Aramis found him deep in his cups at the taproom below his lodgings. He barely had the energy to greet them, just lifting his head enough to register his friends' approach. "I'd prefer to be alone," he slurred.

"We know." Aramis settled in beside him.

"Shame," Porthos drawled, reaching for the bottle of wine.

Athos tried to keep his glower straight. It was hard when his eyes were crossing, though. "Fine," he said, and took Porthos's cup, tossing it back in one motion. 

He drank steadily, letting them banter back and forth around him. He pretended he didn't catch the looks they shot him when they thought he wouldn't see. Worried. Calculating. Damn nursemaids. Ignoring their sideways glances, he sank deeper and deeper into his thoughts, his vision graying around the edges with drink and with memory.

His wife. Could a ghost still haunt a person if they weren't dead?

The thought sent an unpleasant tremor through his hand, and he slammed his cup down on the table far harder than he'd meant to. It thunked loudly against the wood, and Aramis and Porthos started, turning to look at him.

Aramis set his cup down far more gracefully, and he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Are you going to tell us what it is, then?"

"No."

"I told you," Porthos said. He sighed, stretching his long legs out under the table. "Athos doesn't need anyone." Even drunk as he was, Athos heard the bitter lilt.

"That isn't true," Aramis said, as if Athos weren't even there. "If he didn't need us, he would have gone to drink somewhere else."

"Possibly," Porthos said, rubbing his fingers along the stubbled edges of his beard.

"I am still here," Athos said. He needed to make at least a token protest.

Aramis looked at him, and his dark eyes were sad. "No, you're not," he said quietly. "You're far away, and you have been for days."

Athos stared at him. His eyes fell shut of their own accord, and he sank his head into his hands, elbows resting on the table.

"We know something happened," Porthos said. "Y' gonna tell us what?"

Athos shook his head, raising his head and staring into his wine cup as if it had some answer written for them. "There's no point." He could barely get the words out. "It's over with now." 

They deserved to know. What he was, what he'd done. They called him friend and they didn't even know him. 

His wine cup rippled on the table before him. It took him too long to realize there were drops falling into it. His nose was wet.

"Athos," Porthos said beside him, rough voice gentle and far too close. 

Athos reached up and pawed at his eyes. His hand came away wet, and he stared at it. "Oh, God damn it all to hell." 

"All right," Porthos sighed, reaching out and hooking an arm around Athos's shoulders. "I think that's enough for tonight."

They hauled him from the taproom and up the stairs to his room with the efficiency of long practice, Athos's arm slung around Porthos's shoulders and his face buried in Porthos's neck. If the collar of Porthos's shirt was soaked with warm saltwater by the top of the stairs, they were both good enough not to mention it.

Porthos sat him on the far edge of his bed, closest to the window, and Aramis had somehow found a basin of cool water and a clean cloth. Athos was too drunk to protest being coddled like a child. And anyway he couldn't find any heart in him to complain, as Aramis made him drink some water and then wiped sweat and grime and tears from his face with a gentle hand.

"There," Aramis said when he was done, his lips quirking up in a smile, and Athos had to lock every muscle in his body to stop himself leaning into him. He nodded silently, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth as well, then Aramis straightened, and the moment was gone.

He didn't want to ask them to stay. He'd already unmanned himself enough this evening. But the thought of the door closing behind them and leaving nothing but the unbearable stillness of his room--

"It's too damned late to walk back to my chambers," Aramis said, yawning hugely. "You don't mind if we just stay, do you, Athos?" Without waiting for an answer, he stripped off his shirt and flopped down on the bed beside Athos. Porthos followed suit, kicking off his boots and dropping on Aramis's other side.

Gratitude caught thick in his throat, burning the back like tears. Athos shook his head, unable to say anything more. His head was swimming with the alcohol he'd drunk, and he couldn't form any words to thank them.

"Go to sleep, Athos," Porthos said gruffly, reading his mind as usual, and blew out the lamp.

He lay on his back in the blue-black dark, his mind churning with wine and grief and wordless emotion filling up his chest. Aramis was warm, curled against his side, and he could hear Porthos's deep steady breathing, and it was suddenly all too much. That they would be here, solid and warm in his bed, when he wouldn't tell them anything about himself, about his past, when he'd behaved so shamefully-- He didn't deserve them, didn't deserve their understanding silence, and he needed to thank them, at least, or--or--

Aramis draped an arm over his chest. He sighed softly, and his warm breath ruffled Athos's hair. Porthos rolled over too, shifting the bed, and he settled in closer to the two of them, his broad side a rampart to keep the world out, keep the two of them protected.

Painful warmth clenched in his chest, so much soft emotion he'd never thought he'd feel again. Athos wanted to turn towards them so badly. They were so good to him. So good and he couldn't even give them the decency of the truth. The truth of his past, he could never, but--the truth of his feelings--

He tried to sit up, but Aramis's arm was deceptively restraining. The truth. It was important that they--that they know-- "Aramis," he said, trying to get it out. "Porthos, I--" His throat closed. "I..."

"Hush, dear heart," Aramis said, his eyes still shut, and he pressed Athos down into the pillow, fitting himself into Athos's side again.

"We know," Porthos said. He sounded already half-asleep. Like it was the most natural thing, so natural he knew it even unconscious.

Athos closed his eyes and let himself fall.

\- 

Sunlight stabbed his eyes and his brain into wakefulness. He groaned, turning away, and turned into solid muscle and yielding warmth.

He hadn't had a bedmate in so long. It felt so good, to feel an arm around him, to hear twin breaths rising and falling in slumber and know he wasn't alone.

...Twin breaths?

Last night's events flashed fully-formed into his head, like Athena from Zeus, and Athos's eyes snapped open.

Aramis was watching him. His eyes forestalled any panic Athos might have felt. There was a softness there that made his breath catch.

"You know, that's very unsettling," Athos rasped when he'd found his voice.

Aramis smiled. His hair was rumpled in sleep, and Athos found he liked unpolished Aramis far more than well-groomed Aramis. He reached down and brushed Athos's own hair from his forehead. "You know we already worship you, Athos," he said quietly. "It doesn't mean you need to be more or less than human."

Athos blinked up at him. His heart thudded painfully in his chest. "Doesn't it?"

"No," Porthos grumbled from Aramis's other side.

Athos closed his eyes. He had to smile. 

"There," Aramis said, almost triumphant, and the bed shifted. Athos opened his eyes just in time to see Aramis close--too close--and then Aramis pressed a featherlight kiss to his lips. It was over in an eyeblink, then Aramis was sliding down the bed, pushing himself off and searching for his discarded clothes.

"Get up, lazybones," Aramis said, as though absolutely nothing of consequence had happened. He kicked Porthos's edge of the bed and threw a shirt at his head, ignoring Porthos's loud grumble of protest. "We're going to miss roll call."

Porthos rolled over, pulling the blanket over his face and ignoring the shirt. "Only Athos gets to tell me what to do."

Athos splashed water over his face from Aramis's basin on the sideboard, then pushed himself upright. "Get up, lazybones," he echoed. "We're going to miss roll call."

"That's our Athos," Porthos rumbled, and Aramis beamed at him. "Back at last."

Athos let a private smile cross his face, as he strode to the window and threw it open. 

They knew.


End file.
